Inspiration
This recipe is one of my first attempts at making a lager. I based the recipe on Tired Hands' lager, and read a document about low oxygen brewing helles lager that I used for determining the entire process. What I love about this style is how simple it is. Entirely pilsner malt, one noble hop and a lager yeast. The ideal version of this is soft, and highlights the malt and hops, but both very subtly. Hay, cracker, biscuit, refreshing are all flavours I noticed from the Tired Hands beer, and also in the ingredients as I was using them in this. The beer is really about process: limiting oxygen at every step, and careful fermentation and handling. I'm hoping that what I learn from this I can use in my IPA as well.
Recipe
Boil Time: 90 min
Batch Size: 20 liters
Original Gravity: 1.044
Final Gravity: 1.012
ABV (standard): 4.50%
Fermentables
Bohemian Pilsner 100%
Hops
8g - Hallertauer Mittelfruh, Type: Pellet, First Wort Hops
20g - Hallertauer Mittelfruh, Type: Pellet, 45 min
Mash Guidelines
1) Infusion, Temp: 66 C, Time: 60 min
2) Sparge, Temp: 77 C, Time: 10 min
Yeast
2308 Munich Lager packet, 3L starter made for around 250-300 billion cells
Water
Amsterdam Source + 1.5g Campden added to Mash, and 0.33g Campden to Sparge
3g CaCl added to Sparge
Mash add: 4ml Lactic Acid = 5.39 pH
Pre boil: 5.70 pH
Add: 4ml Lactic Acid = 5.15 pH
Notes
Brewed 03/09/2021
Every effort should be made to reach pitching temperature (5-6 degrees Celsius) and add the yeast as quickly as possible. The temperature of the fermenting beer should be allowed to rise to 8C over the course of 48 hours. It should then be held at 8C until approximately 45% (1.024) apparent attenuation is reached, at which point it should be cooled by 0.5 to 1 degrees Celsius per day. Your target is for the beer to reach 5-6C by the time that its gravity is 1.5 Plato above your expected final gravity (1.016)
We recommend racking the beer to a keg while fermentation is still active and there is still fermentable extract remaining. At this point, the beer temperature should be approximately 5-6C. Once your beer's gravity is approximately 1.5 Plato above your expected final gravity, rack the beer into a CO2 purged keg.
After racking, attach a pressure relief valve (spundapparat, but commonly called a spunding valve) set to 0.8 bar. You can now continue dropping the temperature approximately 0.5C per day, but may want to hold the beer at 3C until final gravity is reached - this may take a couple weeks. At that point, you can continue dropping the temperature until you hit -1C, where the beer should be held for 2-4 weeks.
20210907: 1.031
Smells like sulpher/egg coming through the airlock, but I'm assuming that's alright for now based off of what I've read. The flavor is already becoming quite nice and only has a little of the aroma in the taste.
20210912: Down to 1.020 and 6C
20210913: Transfer to 9L keg and keep the rest in original keg, down to 5C
I'm not sure when I finished this, but it was a really easy drinking, fresh, crisp and hay like lager. I want more malt character the next time I make this, so should look into using additional malts.